When some people hear “coworking space,” they might still think of startups or freelancers. The truth is, the pandemic vastly accelerated the shift toward remote work. As a result, coworking spaces aren’t so niche and nascent as they once were — now, they belong to everybody.

In fact, according to the third edition of McKinsey’s American Opportunity Survey, which surveyed 25,000 American workers in 2022, 35% of respondents report having the option to work from home five days a week.

What’s more, is that the respondents work in all kinds of jobs, spanning every sector of the economy and every corner of the country. This even includes “blue collar” jobs such as construction that have traditionally required exclusive on-site labor.

Though the remote work economy we now see, in many ways, started as a frenzied reaction to a sudden crisis, it seems to have found a permanent home in communities across the country. That more diversified sampling of the labor market is showing up in coworking spaces too. 

Remote workers are increasingly spread across every area of the workforce, yet some professions are still more heavily represented in coworking spaces across the country. 

Here are the top professions of coworking space members across the U.S., per Zippia.

Top Coworking Space Member Professions

IT 

Information Technology professionals account for a whopping 20% of coworking space members, which paces all sectors and industries. It makes sense, given that IT workers do the vast majority of their work over the phone or on the computer. Many careers in IT are expected to see impressive growth in the coming years, with some jobs projected to grow as much as 22% from 2020 to 2030, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

PR and Marketing

The popularity of remote work has shot up across the board, but the growth of remote marketing and public relations jobs still outpaces that of other industries. In particular, a LinkedIn report noted that remote roles for remote digital marketing specialists and copywriters significantly grew in demand over the first six months of 2021 as companies became more comfortable with work-from-home teams.

Consulting

The field of consulting is as broad as freelancing, as it can describe experts working in nearly any field. That could mean real estate, winemaking, landscaping, and just about anything in between. Some of them could likely be grouped into the other three categories on this list. Others could be freelancers; others still could work with agencies, but all form an important part of your coworking space community. 

Design

Design professionals are among the remote workers that could stand to benefit most from a coworking space. Though the majority of a designer’s work is carried out independently, be it graphic or interior design, these individuals tend to thrive in collaborative workspaces, in which they can draw inspiration from the people and environment around them.

Why This Matters For Your Coworking Space Business

If you’re a coworking space owner or manager, you may want to take note. After all, it’s important to know your audience and keep these stats in mind when designing, marketing, and planning events for your coworking space business. 

Here’s what you can do to get the most out of your space:

Layout and Design

Is your physical space optimized for these workers?

Are the layout and design of your coworking space conducive to people working in these fields? Of course, your coworking space doesn’t need to cater to them exclusively, but it’s important to be mindful of who specifically is using your space, and optimizing it, at least in part, for their specific needs. 

For instance, many IT, PR, and Consulting professionals spend the lion’s share of their workdays on the phone, so it might not be a bad idea to set your common coworking area up with several insulated phone booths for voice or video calls. That way, these individuals can get the privacy they need to carry out the demands of their work without disturbing your other members. Giving these types of things the proper consideration will only increase member satisfaction at your coworking space business.

Marketing

A marketing plan can help you identify the target audience for your space, attract new members and deepen engagement with your current members. This is your roadmap that will help keep you on message and on target toward your KPIs.  

Once you’ve pinpointed the target audiences for your coworking space business, get even more specific about who these individuals actually are. The best way to do that is to develop a buyer persona, which is a research-based profile that depicts a target customer. This can be a fictionalized representation of the type of member you’d like to attract to your space.

For instance, if you have high volume of web designers in your membership base, you could create a buyer persona called “Web Design Wally.” Then get specific about where Wally might hang out, which social networks he might use, other brands he might care about, and other details about his interests. Personas help you start thinking about how to speak your target customers’ language and meet them where they are. 

Remember: if you’re marketing to everybody, you’re marketing to nobody.

Events

You wouldn’t plan events at your coworking space around entrepreneurship when the vast majority of your workers are nine-to-five employees, would you? So when you’re mapping out a strategy for daytime or after-hours events, try to cater to the interests and industries of your members. 

Ask yourself “what would get your members excited about attending?” and your coworking space business will reap the benefits. If you have a marketing-heavy membership base, you could plan an event around getting the most out of HubSpot or WordPress. For your IT crowd, you could bring in an expert on AI or cybersecurity to help your members level up their industry knowledge. There’s always something for everyone to learn. Just make sure it’s a topic that’s of interest to as many people as possible.

Looking to spend less time on operational tasks and focus more time on building your community? We’ll show you how.

Schedule your risk-free Coworking Space Optimization Call HERE.